“What I do with people is I empower” says Berner —Billboard charting rapper, cannabis trailblazer, documentary filmmaker, cultural ambassador and, quite literally, a budding business mogul. And like The Prophet of Kahlil Gibran’s classic stories on life and the human condition, Berner is both a healer and dealer of earned wisdom, too. 

 

Berner knows what it is to make something from nothing, one of the most basic definitions of his beloved hip-hop culture. Born Gilbert Anthony Milam, Jr., Berner comes from working-class parents in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. His father, Mexican American, owned a restaurant and worked everyday, all day, while his mother, mostly Italian American with a hint of Irish blood, was a headhunter for those seeking jobs, while working two jobs of her own. 

“I think it’s fair to say I got my work ethic from my mother and my father,” prides Berner. “But I got the business ambitions from being hungry and wanting more.”

In high school, a family move and subsequent divorce saw Berner shuttling back and forth between California and Arizona, finally settling in the Bay. He immersed himself in the underground rap scene, and in 2007 he self-produced and released his debut mixtape, Dirty Sneakers…Plenty ofWays to Get It. 

 Berner, like one of his rap Gods, Tupac Shakur, dropped out of high school to pursue something he admittedly knew very little about, music. Wanting to do something big, he saw music and, aspirationally, a film career as his ticket. The money earned from selling weed was his fare. He navigated the Bay Area independent music scene, not realizing that both his art and his side hustle would one day make him a game-changer in both industries.